Draconia: Forging Trust revolves around a planet, Draconia, where there lives a race of dragons. Humans come to this planet to establish a colony when they encounter the dragons. Paranoia by the commander of the survey party leads to a misunderstanding, which sparks suspicion among the dragons. The main characters, Audwin McClance (a Human) and Varthikes (a dragon), work together to establish a peaceful coexistence between their respective kinds.

__________________ Friendship is powerful. It spans great distances and endures adversity.

From the Weyr and from the Bowl
Bronze and Brown and Blue and Green,
Rise the dragonmen of Pern,
Aloft, on wing, seen, then unseen.
Dragonman avoid excess
Greed will bring the Weyr distress;
To the ancient Laws adhere,
Prospers thus the Dragon-weyr.

DLC: I want to introduce everyone to the author of Draconia: Forging Trust. Please introduce yourself.

FJH: Greetings. I am F.J. Hansen. I hail from Fremont, CA, where I was born, raised, and am currently living with my parents. I am the seventh of seven children, with three older brothers and three older sisters -- three of whom are married and have moved out.

DLC: I'm the youngest in my family too. We get spoiled. lol =) Tell us about Draconia.

FJH: My current book out, which is also my very first book ever published, is Draconia: Forging Trust. It centers around a planet, Draconia, home to a race of dragons. A Human survey party comes to Draconia looking to establish a colony when they encounter the dragons. Paranoia by the Human commander sparks a misunderstanding, burning into suspicion among the dragons concerning the Humans' true purpose. During all of this, Varthikes, an adolescent dragon, and Audwin McClance, an ensign on his first mission, form a fast friendship and struggle for a peaceful coexistence between their respective kinds.

DLC: A true fantasy/sci-fi. So what inspired you to be a writer or have you always had a passion for writing?

FJH: I started writing when I was about 6. But, I didn't actually begin aspiring to be a writer until around 10-11. I was coming up with stories while playing with my Micro Machines. One day, I decided it would be a great idea to write these stories down. So, I just started writing. I have always been writing since then.

DLC: Nice. So if you could give advice to other authors or aspiring authors what would say?

FJH: I would echo the most common piece of advice given to aspiring writers: read, a lot. And, I would agree that it's helpful to read outside of your preferred genre as well as within. If you write fiction, be observant in your day-to-day life--observe how people act, react, hear how they talk. When you go on road trips, taking a moment to just watch the scenery can help enrich the landscapes in your stories.

DLC: Yes that's good advice.

FJH: When it comes to publishing the work, be patient and continually apply yourself to perfecting your writing as much as possible. Don't let rejections get you down. 9 times out of 10, you'll get rejected. It's simply part of the process.

DLC: Rejection is just part of the process. What source or sources do you draw from when creating a new story?

FJH: I draw inspiration from my own experiences, experiences of others that I hear, from what I see in the world around me. Movies, television shows, and books from other authors can also generate ideas. One short story I wrote was inspired by the first few minutes of a certain Disney movie. Inspiration for Draconia came from another movie and a book series that I was reading at the time.

DLC: What was your greatest challenge personally when writing your current story?

FJH: For five years prior to creating Draconia, I wrote mainly short stories. So, it took some doing to get me comfortable with breaking that page count barrier. But then, I had to reach the appropriate novel length of 80,000 words. That took a bit more exercising to get the creative juices running.

DLC: It is a big difference. Why did you choose science fiction as your genre?

FJH: I grew up around science fiction, Star Trek particularly. When I was 8, I started collecting Star Trek Micro Machines with which I created my own Star Trek stories. After a few years, I decided to start writing these stories down. A few more years, I started creating my own science fiction Universe. Eleven years later, I'm still writing science fiction. This genre allows me to do things that I wouldn't be able to do in most other genres--like traveling through space, exploring other planets, creating alien civilizations, flying with dragons, pitting dragon against fighter, having dragons fly alongside fighters... The possibilities are endless.

DLC: Science fiction truly does open up the possibilities. So who are your favorite authors?

FJH: At the moment, E.E. Knight would be my favorite. Particularly, I love his Age of Fire series, which he writes completely from the point-of-view of dragons. I love dragons. Also, I couldn't leave out Anne McCaffrey, whose writing influenced mine. It was her series Dragonriders of Pern that inspired my Draconia story.

DLC: Cool. Are you working on a book now and if so tell us a little bit about it?

FJH: I'm at the editing stage of Fractured Dream, Book 2 in the Draconia series. Seven years of peace between dragons and Humans is sabotaged when the dragons suffer a devastating attack by a Human fighter. Dragons respond by attacking the colony. Varthikes and Audwin, now considered traitors by both sides, struggle to save their home for themselves and their families.

And, I'm already writing Book 3, where Varthikes and Audwin, with the help of an alien ambassador, attempt to build a new future for Draconia.

DLC: That's wonderful. Tell us where we can go to get more information about you and your book?

Joyfully Greeting, P'ter, Varth (Varthikes) at he is known at Lair of Dragons and I'm GinnyStar2, this is before my sight when worst, I helped him with a special forum, for this he was working on the publishing deal so we made it password protected. I am a administrator, worked my way up from being a Moderator to one of the staff administrators.
In fact, some of the stories are in a special forum here Under Draconia http://z8.invisionfree.com/Lair_of_Dragons/index.php? Lair of Dragons

Loved the story, even if it stretched my suspension of disbelief a bit in places. The editing wasn't as good as I tend to expect from books either, there were a few typos and some odd syntax (and I'm not talking about the Draconians' intentionally odd syntax), not to mention some unnecessarily complex sentence structures where simpler ones would do as well.

But I think the series has a lot of potential.

__________________Decaf coffee is an oxymoron. Instant coffee is an abomination. Give me the real thing and nobody gets hurt.
"Do. Or do not. There is no try" -- Yoda
VP of the Afra Lyon fan club!

If you'd made the book available on a standard POD press like Lulu, I'd probably buy it. As it is, coming from a vanity press which lines the pockets of the oh-so-delightful Robert Fletcher... I'm sorry, but my curiosity doesn't come close to balancing my ethical revulsion.

If you'd made the book available on a standard POD press like Lulu, I'd probably buy it. As it is, coming from a vanity press which lines the pockets of the oh-so-delightful Robert Fletcher... I'm sorry, but my curiosity doesn't come close to balancing my ethical revulsion.

Still, I wish you all the best breaking even.

It's also available in e-book format through Amazon Kindle and Smashwords, if that would make you feel better.

__________________ Friendship is powerful. It spans great distances and endures adversity.

Well, here's my review... You may link to this post from elsewhere if you wish, and I reserve the right to repost my review on other sf/literature boards I visit.

Draconia: Forging Trust by F.J. Hansen

Warning, spoilers ahead!

The book is an interesting take on intelligent dragons written by a promising newcomer. However, it could do with some judicious editing. The book was published by a vanity publisher, which means a lack of proper editing and this is painfully obvious in some places.

The setting is the future where humanity has expanded beyond Earth, even though the exact date is never specified, which at least has the advantage that the book won’t be outdated in a hurry! I like the fact that the background is explained in small, almost throwaway comments, rather than huge info-dumps either in a foreword or in the text itself, which are all too common in this genre.

I was somewhat bothered by the use of Star Trek terminology such as warp drives. The author also includes several references to Anne McCaffrey’s Pern in the story, which is only a bit of fun for Pern fans like me, but which might not be so well received by non-fans.

The main protagonists are well written in the sense that they seem like real people and sentient beings. No small feat considering the dragons’ names take a bit of getting used to. Neither Sheski nor Ilka Ramloia sounds particularly Scandinavian, although with immigration increasingly common, things may be different by the time the events of the book take place. However, the names did strike this Scandinavian reader as very unusual.

The plot was somewhat predictable, which may not necessarily be a bad thing in a science-fiction adventure story like this. Humans arrive at a new world. First contact is botched by a nervous officer. A young ensign on his first mission is the key to understanding the alien dragons, and forging an alliance with them. Groups on both sides are opposed to the cooperation between the two species, and do their best to thwart the alliance. In addition boy meets girl but things won’t be happy ever after…

There are a number of places in the book where I found my suspension of disbelief foundering. It was a bit hard to believe that a young ensign on his first mission would be thrust into such an important position in the first place. Sheski seemed to overcome his prejudices rather quickly. In reality nurses don’t get promoted to doctors, since the lines of study are completely different. Field medics maybe, but not fully-fledged doctors. And I can’t help but wonder where the Trek-like teleportation device came from, just in time to save some injured dragons, particularly since shuttles of various types had been used previously. Perhaps it was a new technology, as yet too unreliable to use except in emergencies?

My biggest gripe, however, was the romance between Audwin and Ilka, or rather that they decided in a matter of weeks to marry and start a family. The former might be understandable, but I would have preferred that the latter had been left to the next book.

I really liked the description of Draconian culture, and their idiomatic expressions such as “minds of stone” used of stubborn Draconians who refuse to change their minds.

I hope that this book is only a first draft, and may it be picked up by a commercial publisher after a rewrite. The world and its inhabitants show a lot of promise.

__________________Decaf coffee is an oxymoron. Instant coffee is an abomination. Give me the real thing and nobody gets hurt.
"Do. Or do not. There is no try" -- Yoda
VP of the Afra Lyon fan club!

I have to ask...is there any cash-up-front involved with this publisher (was Eloquent Books, they seem to have changed their name)? ie You pay them.

Also did you look at e-reader formats? I'm considering Kindle, since they seem on their way to cornering the market, but I'm fuzzy on whether I can make content available both in their format and Nook (which has a big instore presence at B&N?)

I have to ask...is there any cash-up-front involved with this publisher (was Eloquent Books, they seem to have changed their name)? ie You pay them.

Yes, I do pay them. But, not necessarily all up-front. I got an arrangement where I pay them installments over time.

Quote:

Also did you look at e-reader formats? I'm considering Kindle, since they seem on their way to cornering the market, but I'm fuzzy on whether I can make content available both in their format and Nook (which has a big instore presence at B&N?)

I do have it available for Kindle and for Nook, Kobo, and several other formats. I'm uncertain whether they're interchangeable. I think they are.

__________________ Friendship is powerful. It spans great distances and endures adversity.

I'm happy to announce that my next two books, Draconia: Fractured Dream and Draconia: Rehatching will be released toward the end of next month. Unfortunately, for now, they'll only be available in electronic format.

Here's the cover for Fractured Dream:

__________________ Friendship is powerful. It spans great distances and endures adversity.